For the first hour I was exceedingly amused. The Barbyses was alive with caïques—the air was loud with music and laughter—the greensward was crowded with arabas and idlers; and every shady tree had a colony beneath its boughs. But I soon wearied of the coil and confusion by which I was surrounded; the green, fresh, quiet valley had lost all its charm; I could scarcely recognize my favourite spots; nor was it until the close of twilight, when the illuminated glories of the port flashed out like a circle of fire in the distance, that I became reconciled. The moon silvered over the rippling river; the nightingales were loud in the Palace gardens; a million of twinkling stars were relieving the deep blue of the summer sky; while here and there erections of many-coloured light rose flashing out amid the leafy boughs of the crowd-invaded glen. Pashas came and went in their noiseless caïques; dulcimers and tambourines deadened at times the music of the night bird; and the low wind, which heaved the elastic branches of the water willow, and came sighing along the ripple of the sweet river, rendered the valley by night a scene of enchantment. I wandered to the grave of the Odalique: the moonlight was resting upon the record-stone; and a nightingale, seated amid the branches of the overhanging tree, was breathing out its song of mournful melody: it was far away from the idle throng of revellers, and I was weak enough to be glad that it was so. The night was so lovely that we dismissed our araba, and determined on returning in a caïque as far as the Palace of Eyoub, where I had been invited by the Princess Azmè to pass the night; but, on arriving there, we found that the Sultana and the principal ladies of her household had been detained by the Sultan, and would not return until the following day.